Professor

Katherine Canby Balderston
Born(1895-01-02)January 2, 1895
Boise, Idaho
DiedNovember 21, 1979(1979-11-21) (aged 84)
South Natick, Massachusetts
AwardsRose Mary Crawshay Prize (1941)
Academic background
Alma materYale University
Academic work
DisciplineEnglish literature
Sub-discipline18th-century
InstitutionsWellesley College
Notable worksThe Collected Letters of Oliver Goldsmith (1928)

Katherine Canby Balderston (January 2, 1895, Boise, Idaho – November 21, 1979, South Natick, Massachusetts) was an American scholar of 18th century English literature. A professor emerita at Wellesley College, she was a winner of the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1941.

Life

Katherine Canby Balderston was born in Boise, Idaho, one of four children. Her father, William Balderston, was an editor of the Boise Statesman, while her mother Stella would become the Idaho State Librarian.[1][2] She graduated from Wellesley College in 1916 with a bachelor's degree, Radcliffe College with a master's, and obtained her doctorate from Yale University.[3] She was a member of the Wellesley basketball team at the time of her graduation.[4]

Balderston researched Oliver Goldsmith's life and letters, uncovering previously unknown details about his relations with his family, as well as the creation of his play She Stoops To Conquer in The Collected Letters of Oliver Goldsmith, which she edited and published in 1928.[5] She established that the character of the father in The Vicar of Wakefield, which was hitherto thought to be based on Goldsmith's own, was rather an idealised parent that he wished to have had; similarly, the idealised village of Sweet Auburn, thought to have been his village in Ireland, was rather an English town that Goldsmith preferred to have grown up in.[6]

Balderston edited and published the Thraliana, the diaries of Hester Thrale. One of her contentions (challenged by later scholars) was that Thrale had some sort of sadomasochistic hold over Samuel Johnson.[7] This book won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize in 1941.[8]

In 1942, she was made Martha Hale Shackford professor of English literature at Wellesley, which she held till retirement. She died in a nursing home in South Natick, Massachusetts in 1979.[3]

Selected works

  • The History and Sources of Percy's Memoir of Goldsmith. Cambridge University. 1926.
  • The Collected Letters of Oliver Goldsmith. Cambridge University. 1928.
  • Balderston, Katherine, ed. (1951). Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale (Later Mrs. Piozzi) 1776-1809. Clarendon.

References

  1. ↑ "William Balderston dies suddenly at Boise". The Caldwell Tribune. May 8, 1914. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  2. ↑ "Former Idahoan dies in Delaware". Idaho State Journal. November 13, 1950. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  3. 1 2 "Katherine Balderston dies". Jackson Hole News. December 19, 1979. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  4. ↑ Pinanski, Joan (May 23, 1940). "1902 Sport Events Place Field Day Among Wellesley Traditions" (PDF). Wellesley College News. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  5. ↑ "More Books of the Week". The Spectator. October 20, 1928. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  6. ↑ Bauer, Elisabeth B. (March 7, 1929). "Katherine Balderston Speaks on Goldsmith: Buck, Author, Man". The New Hampshire. p. 2. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  7. ↑ Murray, J.R. (1991). Samuel Johnson: authority for an age (PDF) (Thesis). Durham University. pp. 23, 200. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
  8. ↑ "The Rose Mary Crawshay Prize" (PDF). British Academy. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
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